'Didn't Want To Eliminate Congress Leadership': Ex-Maoist Leader Regrets Darbha Ghati Killings

Last Updated:March 10, 2026, 14:44 IST

Sonu had surrendered on October 25, 2025, along with 60 other Maoists in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. Soon after, nearly 200 others surrendered in Chhattisgarh

Thirteen years after the Darbha Ghati massacre in Chhattisgarh, a former ideological head of the CPI (Maoist) has expressed regret over the killings. Speaking exclusively to CNN-News18, Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Bhupati alias Sonu said the idea was never to eliminate the entire Congress leadership and that the party later expressed regret during internal deliberations.

“Our Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign (TCOC) was on. During TCOC, we laid an ambush and the Congress convoy got caught in it. The idea was never to eliminate the entire Congress leadership. Later, inside party meetings, regret was expressed," Sonu, who was the spokesperson of CPI (Maoist) before surrendering, told CNN-News18.

“IEDs exploded near the vehicle that VC Shukla and Nand Kumar Patel were travelling in. There was crossfire in which Congress functionaries were killed. We were only looking for Mahendra Karma since he had inflicted such atrocities during Salwa Judum. Our women cadre were angry and their vengeance found expression in the manner Karma was killed," Sonu added.

Political circles in Chhattisgarh have long been intrigued about how then Bastar MLA Kawasi Lakma survived the 2013 attack. Sonu claimed that Lakma had survived the IED blast and had requested to be freed.

“He requested that we let him go and we allowed it since the idea was never to eliminate the entire local Congress unit," Sonu said.

However, the former ideological head expressed no regret over another major Maoist attack. In April 2010, 76 CRPF jawans were killed in Chintalnar.

“In war, both sides target each other’s soldiers. CRPF men walked into our ambush," said Sonu, who has been named as an accused in the case. He denied his physical presence at the ambush site.

Sonu surrendered on October 25 along with 60 other Maoists in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra. Soon after, nearly 200 others surrendered in Chhattisgarh, dealing a body blow to the Maoist cadre base in the region.

No contact with Ganapathy since 2024

Sonu’s brother Kishanji was killed in an encounter in West Bengal in 2011. Amid speculation about the possible surrender of former Maoist general secretary Ganapathy, Sonu said he last met the octogenarian leader in 2024.

“Ganapathy is quite old. It was difficult for him to walk around… we all lived together in the forest of Abujhmad. Some reporters called it our capital… so we all lived in our capital. I last met Ganapathy on November 18, 2024. When I put forward the ‘we will not advance theory’ proposal, everyone rejected my offer and I went to Odisha and stayed there for three to four months before returning to Abujhmad," Sonu said.

He denied having any first-hand knowledge of Ganapathy’s current whereabouts but said he had read local media reports claiming that Ganapathy had been arrested in Nepal and that Telangana Police were in touch regarding his surrender.

Security camps and mistakes by the party

Sonu conceded that as security forces increased their presence in the so-called “liberated zones" by setting up camps, it became difficult for Maoists to move around the forests of Bastar and surrounding districts.

“By the end of 2024, I raised the question of surrender. I could see how the party was working and the fact that we were unable to reach common people. Carrying arms and reaching villages meant free conversations were restricted. I realised between 2018 and 2020 that we had made a few mistakes. I presented my opinion before the party that we were becoming like an armed militia and losing our political base. Organising the people was also becoming a problem," Sonu said.

“To reach out to people we must go out. I proposed this before Ganapathy, Basavaraju and others," he added.

“We had to think of surrender when police camps started increasing. The carpet bombing by security forces made our movement difficult, but political mistakes were a bigger reason. We lost popular support," he said.

The former top Maoist commander said regrouping of the outlawed organisation was now impossible since it had lost popular support.

Sonu also called the “Pashupati to Tirupati" slogan a media creation and rejected previous intelligence reports that CPI (Maoist) had links with China or Pakistani terror groups.

“We have never associated ourselves with any foreign country. It is wrong to say that Lashkar representatives attended any of our meetings. No such thing happened," Sonu said when asked about an agency report claiming that around 2010 two Lashkar-e-Taiba members travelled to Bastar to meet the CPI (Maoist) leadership.

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